MSNBC - Pickin' and politickin'

Musicians lend their voices to campaigns

The different bands that have volunteered their electric guitars, drum sets, and vocal chords to support the Bush and Kerry campaigns provide perhaps the most entertaining glimpse into America’s Red-Blue divide. On Kerry’s side, for example, musicians like Jon Bon Jovi and Moby have played at fund-raisers. Fat Mike, meanwhile, founded the liberal 527 group Punkvoter — which includes his band, Blink 182, Sum 41, Good Charlotte, Bad Religion, and others — that hopes to register 500,000 voters in an effort to defeat Bush. And on Thursday, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, and Willie Nelson will perform at a Democratic fund-raising concert in Los Angeles.

Nice to see that Willie has gotten on board, he was a Kucinich guy.

Backing Bush are Christian acts like Third Day and Michael W. Smith, while country artists like Travis Tritt, Larry Gatlin, and Billy Ray Cyrus have performed at campaign events.

Hm. Billy Ray's dad was a longtime Democratic state senator in Kentucky.

Here's my favorite part:

Punkvoter, for instance, is using its Web site, which gets 15 million hits per month, to disseminate political news to punk fans. Although not all punk fans are liberals (in fact, there’s a group called Conservative Punk)...

Conservative Punk? I remember when we called them Neo-Nazi skinheads. Jello Biafra had the first, last and best word on that...